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The White House unveiled its FY 2019 budget request this morning. Although it's incredibly unlikely that the budget request will become law, it does provide a window into the policy priorities of the Trump administration. Of course, the passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act, H.R. 1892, set the discretionary spending level for FY 2019 at $1.321 trillion -- $716 billion for defense discretionary and $605 billion nondefense discretionary. This level of spending is $153 billion higher than the pre-Bipartisan Budget Act spending caps.

Last week, the White House unveiled its budget proposal for FY 2018. The proposal has been received coldly by most in Congress, including many Republicans. The budget isn't perfect, but it does begin to bend federal spending slightly downward over the next ten years, creating a $16 billion surplus in FY 2027. The biggest criticism from policy wonks is that the budget relies on 3 percent economic growth, in part, to balance the budget. The increased economic activity would increase revenue to the federal government.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), this morning, released President Donald Trump’s budget for FY 2018. The budget blueprint rolled out today would potentially increase spending in other areas yet, overall spending would be cut by 0.3 percent.

Following reports that President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) to serve as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon commented:

Minnesota experienced a win for liberty recently when the state reformed regulations on in-home food businesses. According to the Institute for Justice, almost every state has regulations, called cottage food laws, that limit the sale of food out of the home. However, until last month Minnesota was one of the strictest states, allowing many bakers to sell their products only at farmers’ markets and events, and capping the amount they could earn annually to $5,000.

The White House is trying to downplay yet another ObamaCare scandal by calling Jonathan Gruber, the architect of the law, a liar. In a statement provided to a leftist blog, a White House spokesperson disputed the MIT economist's October 2013 comment that the designed lack of transparency in ObamaCare was "a huge political advantage" to ram it through Congress.

Recently the White House Office of Management and Budget released its Midsession Review, an update and review of the budget that President Obama submitted to Congress. The document extols the virtues of the administration's economic policies, noting that a combination of economic growth, discretionary budget cuts and the reversal of the Bush tax cuts has halved the federal deficit. Moving forward, the administration hopes to further the economic recovery through additional budgetary savings from health-care reforms, closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and sensible immigration reform. What the Mid-Session Review does not discuss, however, is the mounting federal debt - and the dangers it poses to the economy.